Motherland

Thank you, HIAS, for saving my mom from Nazi Germany in 1938. She was only 12 years old and no other country would take her or her family. Your Children's Bureau brought her to America. Her parents were murdered.   https://www.facebook.com/HIASrefugees/

Scholastic is offering $4 copies of IS IT NIGHT OR DAY? in the October YA Teens newsletter! It's listed under "Want To Know More About WWII?" https://clubs.scholastic.com/…/dw87071abd/categories/4_2/4_…

"This is a very good (and very important) book about a girl...who lost everything to war and had to start anew in America as a refugee in the 1940s, and her return to the land she once loved...I highly recommend this book for school libraries, public libraries, Holocaust Studies classrooms and resource rooms, and for personal collections. The issue of memory is a powerful one in Holocaust Studies and this ...

Another remarkable find from the archeological dig in my mother's basement -- her German family's book of Hebrew prayers that was published in 1872. My great-grandfather wrote his name on the first page, Maier Westerfeld; the year, 1906; and the name of the town, Stockstadt. My mother remembers her parents stuffing the little book in her suitcase just before she left Germany for America in 1938.

https://wgnradio.com/2018/06/25/after-hours-with-rick-kogan-musicians-and-more-from-the-new-allstate-skyline-studios/  

After Hours with Rick Kogan: Musicians and more from the new Allstate Skyline Studios  

At the age of 12, Gerda Katz fled Nazi Germany and came to America all by herself. Decades before the label gained recognition, she became what's now know as an "unaccompanied minor." Gerda's story of family separation reflects the dislocating trauma, culture shock, and excruciating loneliness many unaccompanied minor immigrants experience. As Gerda becomes an American, she never stops longing to be reunited with her family. Three Stars in the ...

Here's what you don't see when you listen to the radio -- the view from the new WGN-radio studios on Wacker Drive in Chicago. I was on Rick Kogan's "After Hours" show last night. I'll post the link to the podcast soon.

We, the children of Holocaust survivors and refugees, know all too well the lifelong, psychological devastation of a child's early separation from his or her parents.   https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/06/18/it-is-immoral-former-first-lady-laura-bush-criticizes-the-separation-of-migrant-children-from-their-parents/23461456/

On one of our visits to Germany, a woman my mother hardly remembered asked that we visit her in a nursing home. My mother wasn't interested, but the woman insisted, saying she had something for us. Finally, we stopped by her home, and she presented Mom with this box. "Before your mother was forced to leave her home in the 1930s," the woman said, "she gave me this box, handmade ...